How Safe Are Our Casinos?

I have seen casinos tighten security following high-profile shootings or other, similar events. Some tighten security more than others. Some are quick to relax tightened security measures once news of the event fades from the national spotlight.

I carry a small shoulder bag that is just big enough to hold my water bottle, a small flashlight, and various casino player cards. If I didn't fill it with that stuff, it is big enough to hold a small pistol and an extra clip or two of ammo. So, I'm never concerned as I enter a casino if security asks me to show the contents of my shoulder bag. In fact, I'm sometimes disappointed security does not ask to inspect patron bags, as some are rather large.

Some casinos have a rather large meeting & convention business in addition to their gaming activities. While some do it differently, casinos with meeting rooms I most frequently visit in southern Mississippi generally require those attending meetings to walk through the gaming area of the casino. I see folks with boxes on hand-carts and dollies announce they have "materials" for the such-and-such meeting, and pass through security with no visual inspection of the contents of the boxes. Boxes big enough to hold rocket launchers.

I know casinos have (reasonably) good surveillance. But, that only means any tragedy that might occur will have great video footage for the evening news. And, I know casinos have "security," but I've never seen casino security appropriately prepared to provide real "security" if a serious security event threatened gaming patrons.

So, I ask: What level of security do you see in casinos you frequent? Do you feel safe as a gaming patron? Are there members posting here who work (or previously worked) in casino security or surveillance? Or, who have an "insider's" perspective from other work as a casino employee?

I'm not so concerned about safety to stop going to my favorite casinos. But, I do find it somewhat ironic when security wants to talk to me because they find it suspicious because I'm forever looking over my shoulder at nearby activity. (OK, it only happened once. And, the nice man in the suit might not have been security. He only asked if I was looking for someone or needed something.)

Casinos do not check bags of any size. I wheel my big luggage through casinos all the time. I do not feel unsafe because of this.

I have never seen them check a bag. I feel as safe as I do inside any random office building.

There is really no point in just checking bags, that would just be some security theater. They would also have to install detectors you have to walk yourself through and your baggage and then get pat downs by security. This would also involve redesigning entries and exits. Not only would this come at great cost to the casino but also to the discontent of the patrons. Having a TSA style experience is not a selling point for any business. Plus you have to realize that the casino and resort really doesn't want to know whats in your bags. Especially in sin city, they start pulling 12 inch black strapon dildos and bags of coke from baggage, no one benefits from that.

Quote: DiscreteMaths2

There is really no point in just checking bags, that would just be some security theater. They would also have to install detectors you have to walk yourself through and your baggage and then get pat downs by security. This would also involve redesigning entries and exits. Not only would this come at great cost to the casino but also to the discontent of the patrons. Having a TSA style experience is not a selling point for any business. Plus you have to realize that the casino and resort really doesn't want to know whats in your bags. Especially in sin city, they start pulling 12 inch black strapon dildos and bags of coke from baggage, no one benefits from that.

Amazon does not list 12 inch black strap-ons. Pls PM details on availability ;-)

Quote: DiscreteMaths2

There is really no point in just checking bags, that would just be some security theater.

Cleveland checks purses/bags as people enter, and yes its just security theater, wouldn't stop anyone from carrying anything else through in a sock, she, etc.

If I was a terrorist or mass murderer looking to kill a bunch of people, a casino would not be one of my primary targets.

1) There are definitely going to be multiple armed guards present. As soon as I open fire, they're going to come running.

2) There are hundreds of large, heavy bullet resistant machines and pieces of furniture for people to hide behind and use for cover while they escape. I'm not going to get good coverage when I start shooting; too many obstacles in the way.

If you'll notice, the last two big terrorist shootings (in the West), Orlando and Paris, were in big open nightclubs with lots of tightly packed people who are unlikely to be armed. That's like shooting fish in a barrel. Casinos just aren't a logical target for inflicting mass casualties, in my mind. Then again, I'm an intelligent person thinking logically, which is something idiot criminals and terrorists don't do.

You aren't thinking enough like a holy crusader against sin.

Quote: TigerWu

If I was a terrorist or mass murderer looking to kill a bunch of people, a casino would not be one of my primary targets.

1) There are definitely going to be multiple armed guards present. As soon as I open fire, they're going to come running.

2) There are hundreds of large, heavy bullet resistant machines and pieces of furniture for people to hide behind and use for cover while they escape. I'm not going to get good coverage when I start shooting; too many obstacles in the way.

If you'll notice, the last two big terrorist shootings (in the West), Orlando and Paris, were in big open nightclubs with lots of tightly packed people who are unlikely to be armed. That's like shooting fish in a barrel. Casinos just aren't a logical target for inflicting mass casualties, in my mind. Then again, I'm an intelligent person thinking logically, which is something idiot criminals and terrorists don't do.

While not an optimal target, I think casinos and the Strip are on some bad guy's list just because they epitomize everything they hate about Western culture. I appreciate the visible security, and understand when folks who "fit the profile" are asked to submit to searches.

I think casino security is more concerned about preventing robbery and theft than mass murder, and rightfully so.

Edit: I recall that the Paris attack could have been worse, as one of the cells was attempting to bring an explosive device into a stadium where a soccer match was going on, but he was stopped outside the gate by security.

Harveys wallbanger... in Reno. Couple of delivery men wheeled in a large carton on a dolly. Eventually someone got curious and read the sign on it saying 'do not touch...BOMB'.

Only the Venetian has really tight security. Those who wear green are all former Mossad operatives but they protect Sheldon Adelson, not the guests.

Maybe 3 months after 9/11 I valeted at NYNY and the valet asked me to pop the trunk so he could look inside. Not sure how long that procedure lasted as that was the only time I ever visited the place.

Quote: TwoFeathersATL

Amazon does not list 12 inch black strap-ons. Pls PM details on availability ;-)

You didn't look very hard. B00KWK0TYA

Some casinos pop trunks but don't really examine

I was at a casino last night didn't seem like more security. Maybe an extra guard from what I usually see. I did see 2 metro cops tho.

But then again this casino is closing or being bought out so nobody was in here anyway.

The Sls is going out of biz?

Quote: MrGoldenSun

I have never seen them check a bag. I feel as safe as I do inside any random office building.

In Detroit, they check bags, they make you take your hat off and they make you open up your coat. Been doing it for a few years now. At night, they can randomly ID you and they have done it to me, even though I'm was a regular regular at the time. Recall that in Detroit, the police are required to wear their guns as concealed carry whilst off-duty. It was a Detroit cop who had a really bad run at blackjack and told the dealer "You're killing me" as he blew his own head off. I think the dealer drew 21 over his 20 a few times in a row.

In any case, I feel that the more guns there are at hand, the less chance of somebody starting trouble. If they start disallowing concealed carry inside of casinos, then they are as vulnerable as any other gun-free-kill-spree zone.

Quote: discflicker

In Detroit, they check bags, they make you take your hat off and they make you open up your coat. Been doing it for a few years now. At night, they can randomly ID you and they have done it to me, even though I'm was a regular regular at the time. Recall that in Detroit, the police are required to wear their guns as concealed carry whilst off-duty. It was a Detroit cop who had a really bad run at blackjack and told the dealer "You're killing me" as he blew his own head off. I think the dealer drew 21 over his 20 a few times in a row.

In any case, I feel that the more guns there are at hand, the less chance of somebody starting trouble. If they start disallowing concealed carry inside of casinos, then they are as vulnerable as any other gun-free-kill-spree zone.

Only Motorcity makes you open your jacket and lift your hat. The others don't.

There have been a few times (not recently) that I've run into some major Las Vegas casino/resorts having people stationed at entrances to check the vehicles coming in. I get the impression the idea was to look for things that might go ka-boom and make a great big smoldering hole in the ground where a hotel & casino & a whole city block use to be, more than for things that go pop-pop and make much smaller holes.

The last time I pulled into a casino doing this the security doofus paused for a quarter of a minute and looked like he gave up trying to figure out where any trunk or compartment bigger than a breadbox could possibly be found anywhere in my 2-seater, shrugged and waved me in. He apparently wasn't concerned about my computer backpack in plain view on the passenger seat, so I think I can assume he wouldn't have been going through a traveler's luggage. I won't try to offer an opinion of the added safety gained from this, if any, but I'd personally rate the level of inconvenience at about a 0.5 on a 1 to 10 scale.

On the other hand, there are some lesser joints that stretch the definition of the term "casino" more than a bit, like the old Barcelona (now Seigel Somethingorother) and the Eureka and Opera House and suchlike, that do the whole metal detector and what's under your jacket thing. Trust me that they have good reason to do so even on their very best days, and if you know these places at all you will already know why. It is about the kind of normal everyday garden variety mayhem that has been around since primates first walked upright and figured out how to make tools like spears & knives.

Quote: DrawingDead

There have been a few times (not recently) that I've run into some major Las Vegas casino/resorts having people stationed at entrances to check the vehicles coming in. I get the impression the idea was to look for things that might go ka-boom and make a great big smoldering hole in the ground where a hotel & casino & a whole city block use to be, more than for things that go pop-pop and make much smaller holes.

The last time I pulled into a casino doing this the security doofus paused for a quarter of a minute and looked like he gave up trying to figure out where any trunk or compartment bigger than a breadbox could possibly be found anywhere in my 2-seater, shrugged and waved me in. He apparently wasn't concerned about my computer backpack in plain view on the passenger seat, so I think I can assume he wouldn't have been going through a traveler's luggage. I won't try to offer an opinion of the added safety gained from this, if any, but I'd personally rate the level of inconvenience at about a 0.5 on a 1 to 10 scale.

On the other hand, there are some lesser joints that stretch the definition of the term "casino" more than a bit, like the old Barcelona (now Seigel Somethingorother) and the Eureka and Opera House and suchlike, that do the whole metal detector and what's under your jacket thing. Trust me that they have good reason to do so even on their very best days, and if you know these places at all you will already know why. It is about the kind of normal everyday garden variety mayhem that has been around since primates first walked upright and figured out how to make tools like spears & knives.

I got the impression the idea was to look for PEOPLE who might make things go ka-boom. Securities thinking "Oh he's white, wave him through"

Quote: TigerWu

1) There are definitely going to be multiple armed guards present. As soon as I open fire, they're going to come running.

How well are they trained? A weekend crash course before their first day of work or two weeks every year on the shooting range and in psychological and tactical training?

How much do they make?

They direction they would be running will largely depend on these factors.

I have always thought casinos should have armed security. With ISIS growing, I suspect its only a matter of time before something happens in a casino either here or (perhaps more likey) Europe or Asia. ISIS likes to target places that violate their culture, and casinos contain almost all things that are haram. Gambling, alcohol, pork and other foods, women being revealing and often unaccompanied.

And,though some valid points were made about certain areas of casinos being counter-productive for mass shootings, but casinos often contain nightclub as well (including some lgbtq clubs) and other tightly packed areas. Not to mention, there are other things tham firearms you can use to cause harm and confusion (explosives or even vehicles).

I agree checking every bag that comes in and out would be absurd and close to impossible (too many entrances and too many vehicle parking areas). But, having armed security would be a plus, especially if you are in a far out area where the police response time is way too long. Normally I am somebody who is a proponent of concealed carry, but since guests are usually drinking heavily and doing all sorts of stuff, I do not know if that is a good idea in casinos for most people.

Quote: discflicker

In any case, I feel that the more guns there are at hand, the less chance of somebody starting trouble.

I could not disagree more. More armed patrons inside casinos is the last thing I want. I don't mind armed security guards. But other players...a thousand times no.

Quote:

More armed WoV Forum Wackadoodles inside casinos is the last thing anyone should want.

FYP

This sort of demented mayhem to try to create a suicidal/homicidal destructive spectacle isn't new. At all. If it seems that way to someone, they are very young or have an attention & memory deficit. And casinos have been blown up before, and will again. Harvey's in Reno in 1980 is one that comes to mind. The only thing new is the intensity of the breathless frenzy of hype surrounding it, due to the size of the electronic infotainment hole that's always waiting to be filled with whatever is the latest spectacle, and the increase in the share of the population of this rich country that has way too much spare time to consume the hype.

In the fifties warriors for the noble proletariat blew up newspaper offices and other things, killing hundreds of working people in order to save the working class from the capitalist oppression of going to work at places the self selected guardians of the workers didn't approve of. In the sixties and seventies other whack jobs did things like climb a clock-tower at a college and massacre random people below with a rifle and a big sack of ammo, and spoiled fashionable 'cool-dude' fruitcakes appointed themselves to save the world from imperialism by blowing up buildings, incinerating students & lab workers & sometimes themselves & part of the neighborhood in their incompetence. Then there was a decade long fad of varied deranged warriors for this or that forcibly taking over passenger airplanes in-flight to demand something or other. In the seventies and eighties spoiled messianic imbeciles anointed themselves saviors of the Earth by blowing up electric transmission towers and other people places and things, and a weirdo self-elected savior of both the planet and the workers and various other incoherent causes killed and maimed by sending dozens of letter bombs from his squalid shack in Montana. In the nineties most of a block in center of Oklahoma City and many of the people working in it were blown to kingdom-come, along with their children in the day care center, by a politically themed wingnut, and on and on.

It has been happening for longer than anyone here has been alive. Sometimes with firearms, sometimes with more destructive force using simple ingredients that can be purchased anywhere to be converted into something that will make a crater bigger than any building, like diesel fuel and fertilizer. And it isn't unique to any particular location in any one part of the world. For chrissakes hundreds of busses and pubs and trains in England, and Spain, and France, were the regular target of various politically themed mass-murder bombings for decades. No, it is not especially "safe" in a casino or anywhere else. And I sure hope we are never forced to become perfectly safe.

It is a helluva lot less likely for anyone to get croaked that way than by choking yourself to death from failing to chew your food in your haste to make yourself fatter, or cracking your head open by being a clumsy oaf in your own bathtub, or getting run over and turned into bug splatter on a windshield by a WoV Forum member who hasn't had a sober breath in this century and lacks more than two fully functional brain cells to rub together but continues to run around loose and free to operate a motor vehicle, or any of hundreds of other more likely events. In the scale of things I want to worry about, rationally mass spectacle events aren't very important. Ordinary everyday garden variety crime is something that happens a lot in and around casinos constantly, just as it does at other places like shopping centers and nightclubs. But this mass hysteria spectacle and the next one and the next one after that, all of which will remain as inevitable as they always have been, will be hyped and pimped by wingnuts of all flavors as if they are the very most important thing of all. The tried and true imbecile pimping formula that unfortunately never seems to get old enough to be retired: "It just goes to show that [insert slogan here]."

August of 1980:

No, that was not a planned "implosion." Anymore than that Pinto was a "car." It was an overwrought nutjob with a fruitcake cause in his fevered head. And a harebrained plan to get even and fund his gambling obsession. Thirty-six years ago.

That was a good read, DrawingDead.

The AC Hilton didn't allow bags on the casino floor., not even backpacks.

Security specialists will create a "threat matrix" against which they determine what kind of security measures to implement. For casinos, the leading threats are probably
1. Theft of chips or cash
2. Underage persons entering the casino
They were not designed to thwart suicide terrorists.

Even so, a casino is a much "harder" target for terrorism than a public school or an amusement park.

Quote: TwoFeathersATL

Amazon does not list 12 inch black strap-ons. Pls PM details on availability ;-)

LOL, I was going to be a smart-ass and find a website that offers this. Then I realized I would need to google " 12-inch black strap-on" and I didn't want to deal with the kind of pop-up ads that Google would send my way as a a result.

Quote: Wizardofnothing

Some casinos pop trunks but don't really examine

If this procedure is common knowledge, I'm surprised that some enterprising college kids haven't bound and gagged a buddy and stashed him in the trunk just before pulling into valet, just to see the reaction.